I don’t think there actually is a collective noun for complexes, I feel sure that if there were it wouldn’t be a complexity… maybe a difficulty of complexes or a confusion of complexes…

Complexity would likely be the collective noun for puzzles or some such thing…

Anyway…

Back to complexes…

A complex, in this context, is a series of lifts or exercises that is done back to back without putting the bar / dumbbell down. For example, 8 reps each of: deadlifts, cleans, OH presses and back squats then rest and repeat

This has the advantage of being super efficient, a combination of lifting and cardio, not super boring and does all that good stuff like boost muscular endurance and metabolism and suchlike!

It has the disadvantage of being super hard and making you want to fall down!

In case you hadn’t guessed where this was going…I have been adding these into my workouts recently…

I was looking for options as I had got into a very samey pattern with lifting, which I still love, I just thought it is good to mix in some more heart-rate-raise-y whole body fun stuff!

I have been doing a mixture of barbell and dumbbell complexes, and a couple of times I have worked them as a superset as I was training with another person so we did one complex each then swapped… this, when it gets right down to it, is pure madness!

I had to play with the number of reps because I can lift a lot more on a deadlift than I can on a military press… so I upped the reps of the deadlift so I could use the same weight for all of them…switching weights sort of defeats the purpose!